


the world is yours

by kingwellsjaha



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Bible references, F/M, In all shapes and forms, POV Second Person, deals with hvitserk's approach to sex, deals with the subject of Rape, kind of character study and at the same time absolutely not a character study, spoiler: it's bad.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21876733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingwellsjaha/pseuds/kingwellsjaha
Summary: You are Hvitserk Ragnarsson. Your father was a legendary king, more myth than person. They say your grandfather slew a dragon. Your mother once told you the world is yours to conquer.aka. four different perspectives on hvitserk throughout season 4 to 5 combined together. all of them unique, all of them alike in some way.
Relationships: Hvitserk/Every Woman He Had Sex With On The Show (before s6), Hvitserk/Margrethe (Vikings), Hvitserk/The Al-Andalusian Girl, Hvitserk/The Nun, Hvitserk/Thora (Vikings)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	the world is yours

**Author's Note:**

> this is a very potent story, very heavy. the warnings do apply. i don't think that i get too explicit, but it's still very detailed and depicts moments of sexual violence and rape. it also mentions past rape and rape within the bible.
> 
> this was a rather difficult thing to write and i am thankful for [irisdouglasiana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisdouglasiana/pseuds/irisdouglasiana) for reading this and helping me figure this one out.

You are **Hvitserk Ragnarsson**. Your father was a legendary king, more myth than person. They say your grandfather slew a dragon. Your mother once told you the world is yours to conquer.

* * *

You are by the river when you see him—or he sees you. You have come here to try and clean yourself before you continue with your chores. There are still pieces of straw clinging to your dress and legs. You’ve already tried to get rid of them, but whenever you turn your head, you notice a new piece clinging to you. When you hold the dress to your nose you smell the barn, your sweat and the prince. His scent has surrounded you ever since the encounter and somehow you do not want to wash it off because it makes you smile.

It’s ironic that his brother is approaching you now. You had thought of maybe approaching him yourself, but not now with his brother’s scent still clinging to your skin, with the memory still fresh and your body still tired. But you cannot deny him and you can see in his eyes that he is hungry. So you fake a smile, turn your head to the side, looking at him with open arms and inviting him closer. And then—

—then they enter. In the dark of the doorway they form a great shadow ready to swallow you whole. Slowly you make out details: the leather armor, swords, fur. The skin of these men is weatherbeaten, yet still somewhat white. Their beards look like they need trimming and they wear their hair long and braided. Standing together, they all look alike to you and you wonder if you look alike to them. If your dresses and jewellery—always so carefully chosen—do not indicate any status or favoritism to them, but tie you together instead. There is no difference between you and a servant, or your mother, or even Zulema, in her beautiful silk dress. She had pranced around in it the entire afternoon with her head raised high. How offended she would be if she knew it made no difference after all. If the situation weren’t so dire, you would laugh about it, but like this your mouth is tied shut.

Someone steps out from the group, the first man to get a face of his own. In the dim light you make out his soft features. He doesn’t look much older than you. His face is not as tarnished as the others and his beard not as impressive. There is a smile on his face that reminds you of your late brother whenever you had presented him with his favorite toy. There is a glint in his eyes as he takes everyone in. Your contact to men has been limited to your father, brother and occasionally the guards watching you, but you’ve read enough about them and listened to the other women’s tales to fill out the rest; you know what he wants. His eyes move from woman to woman, until they finally land on you. And stay. Your heart should skip a beat, but it doesn’t. You do not even get to feel surprised. Immediately you accept the new reality. And you—

—you lose the ground underneath your feet. For a moment the world is nothing but noise and the beautiful ceiling of your church. The rest is only bits and pieces. You see the shoes of a Northman, the dress of a nobleman and everything is already covered in blood. In your head you still think about the knife in Sister Eve’s hand; how it pressed smoothly into her skin and turned her arms red as well. And how you hesitated when she suggested it and how you regret it now because what is to come can only be worse. You simply start to scream and you don’t stop, even when the monster has pulled you into a far corner of the church. You scream into its face for everyone and God to hear.

The monster chuckles. It reaches out to grab your skirt, pushing it upwards. You fight back immediately, like King David’s daughter Tamar probably fought off her half-brother Amnon. You imagine her running away from his bed where he had laid feigning sickness. He had probably gotten up and grabbed her by the legs as well yanking her back to bed and she had screamed and tried to kick him, never giving up even though it was futile and so you keep fighting as well. The world needs to know of the monster’s wrongdoings. There is no time to cower. You will die anyway, so better to die screaming. You reach out your hands and try to scratch its face. And it—

—it is silent for a moment, after he has taken off his clothes. You let your eyes fall from his face to his chest; adorned with tattoos all the way down to his pale stomach. Scars cover his body and you have the urge to ask him about every single one, but his serious expression silences you.

You had not planned to end up here, even though your mother won’t believe you. You just had been curious why he had not been part of the celebrations. As the brother of the king, his absence had seemed strange. Secretly, you had hoped he would tell you more about the king, give you some information that would relieve your fear. Since the king had proclaimed himself a god among men, the climate has become grim. The guards have their eyes everywhere. You had just wanted to know that everything will be alright, but the king’s brother had been silent and sullen. At first you had believed he was annoyed by you.

But then you had come here and somehow one thing had turned into another. You look into his tired eyes and cannot help but feel yourself falling. It’s a problem, you have a big heart, your mother always remarks, and you let it make decisions for you. You can hear your mother’s warning inside your head and your father’s scowl and yet you pull your dress over your head anyway. Even with the fire, it’s cold. You press your lips together, he reaches out his hand. And you—

—you pretend to be at ease. It almost feels natural to you. You remember your mother as she had welcomed your father every night with a smile and kind words. Even when she had been crying before, even when she had been sick. You had watched them with your sister from the corner of the small hut pretending to be somewhere else. Sometimes her moans had sounded more like whimpers to you. Sometimes you had thought she was in pain, your father’s grip too strong on her. When he had left, her smile had faltered and she had curled into a ball on the bed. As the oldest daughter, you had gotten up and fetched some water and sometimes, when you were lucky, something to eat—you rarely were lucky. You had cleaned her body, observing the red marks on her white skin that over the course of the days turned blue. She had talked to you in the language of her youth and you had only understood bits and pieces.

You try and conjure her smile now, her beauty even in a moment in time where you feel tired when your body wants to rest before embracing another. He breaks off the kiss suddenly and you fear that you might’ve done something wrong. Instinctively, you step closer. _ Everything is fine, my prince_, you want to say, but instead you are stunned when he pushes you gently against the tree. You watch in surprise as he goes down on his knees and lifts up your skirt. You wouldn’t have believed him to be so considerate. His fingers brush over your inner thighs and you close your eyes, trying to relax. And he—

—he has roughly pushed you onto cushions behind a divider. At first he had just wanted to get rid of your dress, but the jewellery is distracting him. With glee he examines a hair pin, the one your mother gave you this morning to make you feel better. It was a gift from your father to her from the beginning of their courtship. As his eyes focus on the jewellery, you dare to search for your mother through the holes of the divider. The other men have gathered the women, binding them together. You spot your mother easily, she looks scared. Her eyes always turn to where you are. She cannot see you, of that you are certain. As a child you had sat here for hours with no one taking notice. You listened to the women gossip and recite poetry. It’s here where you learned your first poem.

You try to think of one now, but you can’t. You think of the laughter that filled this place, but you are unable to hear it anymore. Instead you try to silently tell your mother to turn away and cover her ears, to not bear witness. She has always felt for the two of you, you cannot let her bear this burden.

His hands on your chest bring you back to reality; he roughly rips off your adornments sewn into your dress. You think of the hours it must’ve taken the seamstresses to make them, only to be destroyed in pointless greed. He studies it before tossing it aside, but even when he looks back at you with dilated pupils and a grin, you have the feeling that he cannot quite see you. His eyes bounce from the trappings of your clothes to your earrings to your bracelets. It’s all he can see, you realize. You’re a prize to be gawked at. The thought makes you angry for a split second. He reaches out his hand, trying to grab your earring and you in an attempt to retaliate reach out yours. You aim for hist chest. You want him to feel like an object himself for a moment. But then—

—then you lunge forward, hitting it on the nose, which starts to bleed. The monster starts to laugh. You try and hit it again, but it dodges out of the way. One blow to the head and you lie on the ground; the world spins and grows dark around the edges. It has not used its sword, you realize as it falls onto its knees. As its hands crawl back up your skirt, you wonder for a moment what you must’ve done to deserve this punishment. For a moment the monster wins as you recount every glance, every bad thought. You think about the stable boy and the hay in the barn, how it had rubbed against your knees, was it then that God decided to abandon you? Or was it when you didn’t tell Sister Wassa about the death of her son because she had pushed you for weeks and you had wanted her to pay? The world grows even darker. The monster spreads your legs.

Is this punishment or the set up of a story of revenge? You don’t know. No one knows. All you know is that God someday will make these heathens pay. He will fall over them like the Flood and wash away their false gods until only good Christians remain. Your story will be a small link in this chain, your sins forgotten by history. Because it’s God who will judge you soon, not this monster, not these men. 

You try and reach out your hand again in a last attempt to fight, but you’re unable to coordinate your hands. They fall back to the ground, one hand dipping into warm liquid. With your last strength you examine your hand, now as red as Sister Eve’s. You’re bleeding out, you realize with glee. The world is only one point of light surrounded by darkness. The sound of the fight grows quieter. You think of the Levite’s concubine lying dead in front of the his doorstep. He took her body, cut it into twelve pieces and sent each piece to a different Israelite tribe asking for vengeance. You hope that you will be found as well. And you—

—you stop him as he pulls you close. Your hands wrap around his face and you make him look at you. A crease appears between his eyebrows; insecurity seeps into him. His eyes move over your face, unable to withstand your gaze, but in the end he allows you to look at him. Carefully you caress his face as though he is fragile, and after a while he mirrors your touch. His hand moves to your hair and he slowly starts brushing it.

For the first time this evening, you believe you see something behind his mask. You don’t know what it is right now: it feels like sadness, it feels like tenderness. It makes your heart ache. His hands move to your lips and he brushes them a few times before he hesitantly kisses you again. You open your mouth to let him in. You pull him close. And your—

—your body grows into its task and you now start to understand better how your mother must’ve felt in the hut. She had been so beautiful. That’s what everyone had told you. A weak woman, they had said, but so beautiful, but you know they are wrong. There is no weakness in submitting yourself to the wolves and offering them your heart, especially when you cannot escape. You have to become one yourself and your mother had tried and failed, but you, **Margrethe Audasdottir**, will succeed in what your mother couldn’t do and one day when you are free, you hope she will be proud of you. And you—

—you recoil in disgust when this man—, this boy takes your hand and puts it onto his crotch. He laughs in your face and you look up to meet his eyes that are nothing but dark pupils. You think of your mother and you wonder if your father ever looked at her like this as well. It’s a bad thought, your father would beat you if he knew you had even considered it, but you have always been the bad daughter; all your mother’s beauty but your father’s bite.

You had been nothing but a nuisance to him, too cold and glib to get a hold of, always defiant even in your compliance. That’s why you decide to squeeze down hard through the leather. A cruel smile appears on your lip as the boy— the man— the destroyer of your world hisses.

Your name is **Hafsa bint Hisham** and you decide that you are going to survive this. And you—

—you dream of going to heaven. Saint Peter meets you at the gate and lets you in. You are brought before God and you look at His divine image because you are not afraid of His judgment._ I’m **Godgifu of York**,_ you state into the silence, _ cut my body into pieces and spread it across the country until everyone knows my plight. Let everyone know of the heathens’ misdeeds, so that they will recoil in disgust and join to fight them together. Let their demise be my revenge. _ And He—

—he falls asleep rather quickly after you have finished talking, but you stay awake. Your eyes wander over the empty cabin he calls home. It feels like a dark desolate place, adorned with art, but without any warmth. It has been a while since food has been cooked in this house, since it has been cleaned. In your mind you think of the first meal you would cook in such a house; if you would go for rabbit or goat. It’s a dangerous thought. Something that will surely break your heart, but you’ve always been reckless worrying your mother and older brothers. They always ask the same questions and you never know how to answer them. You know this is foolish. You know it’s a bad idea. You are **Thora Eiriksdottir** and you can feel your heart slipping away into the dark.

* * *

Your name is **Hvitserk Ragnarsson**. You can’t remember the last time your father held you close. Your grandfather died before your mother even got to know him. She once told you the world is yours.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this! i hope my trigger warnings helped you in some way. if you think i have tagged something wrong or should add something to the trigger warnings, feel free to tell me!  
if you have other concerns, thoughts, yell them at me. i am curious and prepared.


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